While the New York Giants played the Dallas Cowboys at nearby MetLife stadium to a roaring crowd on Sept. 5, Secaucus volunteer firefighters were bravely responding to the cries of a kitten stuck in a column in the parking deck at the Meadowlands Convention Center nearby.

Battalion Chief Bryan Schoch said that an out-of-town visitor staying in a nearby hotel had heard the cries of the kitten one evening but wasn’t able to locate it until the next day.

The kitten had somehow been in the parking deck and dropped into the wall of a pillar.

The out-of-town visitor called Secaucus Animal Control but the agency did not have the equipment to reach the cat. The Fire Department was then called and they punched a hole in the pillar wall in order to retrieve the cat.

“The kitten was stuck six feet down,” said Schoch. He explained that the top of the pillar ended at a drop ceiling into which it appears other feral cats have climbed. While no approximate age was given for the cat, Schoch said the animal fit inside the palm of his hand.

The kitten was relocated to the Secaucus Animal Shelter and placed with a nursing cat who immediately took to him.

Schoch said that while the local Fire Department doesn’t get too many calls to rescue stranded kittens from trees, they have, in the past year, rescued a dog stuck in a wall and a duck stuck in some wiring.